Trust in Government and the Boston Anti-Busing Movement

Abstract

ACK OF government legitimacy frequently has been identified as a cause of political instability and emergence of social movements. Lipset (1959), for example, argues that a decline in legitimacy caused some West European governments to fall to fascist movements in 1930s. Similarly, Gurr (1968) maintains that low levels of legitimacy were a principal cause of political instability in 110 colonies and countries. A strong causal relationship between legitimacy and stability is assumed in many explanations of political conflict in United States. For instance, Parsons (1963) and Gamson (1968) argue that only a government that citizens trust can attain a society's collective goals and avert social disorder. These theorists would agree that people who do not trust their government are likely to become involved in a social movement. Existing research on this issue has taken two forms, cross-national comparisons and surveys of populations within industrialized nations. Research using cross-national data does show a significant relationship between legitimacy and political stability (Gurr, 1968; Bwy, 1972). These studies, however, are forced to rely on measures of legitimacy that are both highly indirect and based on dubious assumptions. Bwy's (1972) measures of legitimacy, for example, include an index of degree to which governments in his study are democratic, on assumption that democratic governments enjoy greater legitimacy. The available evidence, however, indicates that this premise is invalid. Authoritarian regimes may also engender widespread legitimacy (Moore, 1978: 399). In addition, political democracy is associated with a host of other factors, such as institutionalization of conflict management (Dahrendorf, 1966), so that any zero order relationship found between legitimacy and political violence is likely to be at least partially spurious. Gurr (1968) also relies on highly indirect measures of legitimacy, such as origins (foreign vs. indigenous) of national governments in his study. Giddens' point that the history of societies shows again and again that structural arrangements are often at first implemented by force. . . , and coercive measures are [then] used to produce and reinforce a new legitimacy, [original emphasis] ( 1968: 267) undercuts usefulness of Gurr's measure of legitimacy. More direct measures of legitimacy have been used in surveys of populations within U.S. and Western Europe. Several studies using survey data support hypothesis that citizens who do not trust government are more likely to support and participate in protest movements (Muller, 1972; Aberback and Walker, 1970; Paige, 1971; Muller and Jukam, 1977; Miller, 1974). Other studies indicate, however, that correlations between legitimacy and protest either are extremely weak (Marsh, 1977) or disappear after additional variables are controlled (Citrin, 1974). Finally, work on relationship between legitimacy and compliance with government policies has also produced inconsistent results. For example, Gatlin